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Silvia Moga,1,2 Andreea Teodorescu,1,2 Petru Ifteni,1,2 Paula-Simina Petric,1,2 Ana-Aliana Miron1,2 1Transilvania University of Brasov, Brasov, Romania; 2Spitalul Clinic de Psihiatrie si Neurologie Brasov, Brasov, RomaniaCorrespondence: Petru Ifteni, Transilvania University of Brasov, Brasov, Romania, Tel +40 (724) 993329, Email petru_ifteni@yahoo.com Paula-Simina Petric, Spitalul Clinic de Psihiatrie si Neurologie Brasov, Brasov, Romania, Tel +40 (747) 629883, Email paula_petric@yahoo.comBackground: Clozapine (CLZ) is used for treatment-resistant schizophrenia (TRS). Adverse reactions to clozapine include neutropenia. In March 2020, WHO declared the COVID-19 pandemic and after, psychiatrists raised concerns regarding continuation of clozapine, due to multiple restrictions. We aimed to provide a study on the association between neutropenia and clozapine in patients with schizophrenia and COVID-19.Aim: To assess the neutrophil count in patients with schizophrenia treated with clozapine and infected with COVID-19.Methods: The study patients with schizophrenia, according to DSM-5, admitted to the Clinical Hospital of Psychiatry and Neurology Brasov, Romania, between April 2020 and October 2021. The inclusion criteria included positive RT-PCR (real-time PCR) test for COVID-19 and treatment with clozapine. We assessed three values of ANC (absolute neutrophil count): before COVID-19 infection (last ANC obtained at mandatory check), during infection and 1 month after resolution (first negative PCR test).Results: Of the 105 cases, 95 did not have neutropenia. Fifty-nine patients were males (62.1%), mean age was 43.5 years (SD = 12.1) with an average of clozapine treatment of 52.4 months (SD = 11.9). At baseline, they had a small reduction in the ANC mean value (4.41 × 109/l; SD = 2.22) which did not constitute a statistically significant decline from the prior to COVID-19 mean value of 4.66 × 109/l (SD = 2.34; p = 0.45). Values were also normal in the first month after negative PCR testing (4.45 × 109/l; SD = 2.35; p = 0.91). A total of 10 patients (9.5%) had neutropenia. The age, dose of clozapine and duration of treatment were not statistically different compared to the group without neutropenia.Conclusion: Psychiatrists and other health professionals should keep in mind that neutrophil count may decrease during COVID-19 infection in patients taking clozapine and in some cases, neutropenia may even occur. We assumed that neutropenia could be caused by COVID-19 and clozapine interaction.Keywords: clozapine, SARS-CoV-2, schizophrenia, agranulocytosis, neutropenia

Silvia Moga, Andreea Teodorescu, Petru Ifteni, Claudia Gavris, Paula-Simina Petric Faculty of Medicine, Transilvania University of Brasov, Brasov, RomaniaCorrespondence: Petru IfteniFaculty of Medicine, Transilvania University of Brasov, Romania, 29th Eroilor Boulevard, Brasov, 500036, RomaniaTel +40 724 993329Email petru_ifteni@yahoo.comBackground: Schizophrenia patients are a population at particular risk of poor outcomes in COVID-19 infection. They have multiple comorbidities that have been identified as risk factors for severe COVID-19: diabetes, hypertension, chronic obstructive respiratory disease, and end-stage renal disease.Aim: The aim of this research was to evaluate the inflammatory response and in-hospital mortality in schizophrenia patients compared to a control group without mental illness.Methods: A total of 101 consecutive individuals with schizophrenia tested positive for COVID-19 was compared with 101 individuals without schizophrenia admitted in the same hospital. The number of severe cases and the number of deaths caused by SARS-CoV-2 were evaluated between April 2020 and April 2021.Results: There were no deaths in the group of patients with schizophrenia. Although the group had a higher number of cases with pulmonary and metabolic comorbidities, in the group with SCZ there were fewer severe cases compared to the control group. The values of some markers of inflammation (CRP and fibrinogen) were significantly lower in SCZ patients. The duration from infection to diagnosis and the start of symptomatic treatment was shorter for the group with SCZ (4.2± 3.2 vs 5.3± 4.6, p < 0.05).Conclusion: The main findings of the study were that vulnerable schizophrenia individuals on antipsychotic treatment showed a lower risk of SARS-CoV-2 severe infection and a likely better COVID-19 prognosis in a protective environment. Rapid access to specialists in case of need are factors that have determined the favorable evolution in a group considered high risk. It could be speculated that antipsychotics could play an important role in preventing SARS-CoV-2 severe manifestation and may exert protective effects against detrimental courses of COVID-19.Keywords: schizophrenia, COVID-19, inflammation, antipsychotics

The interest in the unique properties associated with materials having structures on a nanometer scale has been increasing at an exponential rate in last decade. Transition metal oxides are preferred materials for catalytic applications due to their half-filled d orbitals that make them exist in different oxidation states. Transition metal oxides show a broad structural variety due to their ability to form phases of varying metal to oxygen ratios reflecting multiple stable oxidation states of the metal ions. The Solar Physical Vapor Deposition (SPVD) presented in the paper as elaboration method is an original process to prepare nanopowders working under concentrated sunlight in 2 kW solar furnaces. The influence of the synthesis parameters on the chemical and microstructural characteristics of zinc and manganese oxides synthesized nanophases has been systematically studied using XRD, SEM and EDX.

The SONAR images are perturbed by speckle noise. The use of speckle reduction filters is necessary to optimize the image exploitation procedures. This paper presents a new denoising method in the wavelet domain, which tends to reduce the speckle, preserving the structural features and textural information of the scene. Shift-invariance associated with good directional selectivity is important for the use of a wavelet transform (WT) in many fields of image processing. Generally, complex wavelet transforms, for example, the Double Tree Complex Wavelet Transform (DT-CWT) have these useful properties. In this paper, we propose the use of the DT-CWT in association with Maximum A Posteriori (MAP) filters. Such systems carry out different quality denoising in regions with different homogeneity degree. We propose a solution for the reduction of this unwanted effect based on diversity enhancement. The corresponding denoising algorithm is simple and fast. Some simulation results prove the performance obtained.